


Silent Night

by CatLovePower



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, References to Drugs, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8942869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: Five terrible Christmas nights when Jesse and Cassidy were alone and miserable, and one where they were still miserable, but not alone anymore.





	

  1. 1922 – somewhere East of Dublin, Ireland



Some crazy vampire hunters had succeeded in rallying a small town to their silly fight. They seemed to believe it would be fun to burn Cassidy at the stake. Granted, he was a vampire, but he didn’t drink anyone from this town.  Well, maybe a whore or two when the sex turned out to be unsatisfactory, but that was about it.

The rope was biting his wrists, leaving angry marks on the skin. It didn't really matter because the flames would soon lick the wounds clean. As the crowd began shouting and screaming at him, Cassidy wondered if that was it, if he was going to die tonight, set ablaze by some fuckers who called him Satan's pet.

The flames soared and his feet began sizzling. His shoes were leather, but the heat would soon turn them into overcooked bacon. Human flesh also had a distinctive smell, one that Cassidy was way too familiar with.

His legs turned into jelly and he sagged on the stack of wood, his head hanging low, thinking. Even if he was still conscious when the flames reached his arms, there was no way he would be able to run on burnt legs. Bone tended to become brittle at high temperatures.

He did the only thing that he could think of at the time, he started singing. A Christmas carol, one he heard from the obnoxious carolers who roamed the town. Despite the screaming and the smoke, his voice wasn't so bad. It stopped the crowd, and people started looking at each other, shuffling uncertainly.

And then a heavy snow started falling, blanketing the town, muffling every sound, killing the flames before they could reach his beloved family jewels.

 

  1. 1986 – Annville, TX



The beatings were a rare occurrence. What hurt the most was the feeling of abandonment that lingered some nights. Tonight was Christmas Eve, and Jesse knew pretty well that there'll be no family dinner and no exchange of presents. He was 8.

Jesse liked the midnight mass. The church was full and there was light and singing. People forgot about him, all eyes were on his father. His sermons were boring to Jesse, but sometimes the energy, the intensity he put in them seemed to mean something.

Jesse found the way to the closet behind the altar, where all the funny church things were stocked. He took a huge candle and wondered if he could melt it or carve it. He put it aside. On the next shelf stood several bottles of communion wine.

Even at 8, Jesse knew about the effects of alcohol. His father liked his whiskey dry and said it calmed his nerves after a long day. Miss Pearse, his school teacher, drank from a flask during recess and was always sleepy in the afternoon. Sleepy and calm, that’s what he needed right now, he decided, reaching for a bottle.

The cork proved hard to pull out, but with teeth and perseverance, he finally got the bottle open. The wine smelled likes grapes, sweet and strange; the most exhilarating thing was the feeling of crossing a boundary and stepping into the forbidden world of adults. It made his belly hot and his head light, and for a while he forgot about absent parents and punishments to come.

 

  1. 1988 – Los Angeles, CA



The chills hit him first, but he knew that the rest of the ugly symptoms of withdrawal would soon follow. His muscles would spasm so bad that he’d want to curl up and scream. Being a vampire offered no respite against addiction and its sad consequences. Sure, he wouldn’t die from it, but he’d suffer and feel like shit – more than usual anyways. At this point, blood wouldn’t do him any good. His metabolism might be complicated and different, but he could still be sick. And blood was bad, these days, tainted with a formidable new disease.

He didn’t want to kill for money, and he was too tired to hunt anyways. He curled up between the crappy mattress and the moldy wall of the flat he squatted in these days. He had rolled on the bed and fallen there, not bothering to move because he felt safe and secure in that tight place. And the sun couldn’t reach him, even though one of his stupid flat mates decided to rip the newspapers covering the window panes.

People. He could use people to get drugs. It would be shameful, probably painful. Maybe less than his current predicament. He really needed to get his shit together, he thought, as he emerged from the floor and staggered to the bathroom to make himself look presentable.

And later, when grabbing hands were bruising his hips, and a possessive mouth tried to take control of his lips, he thought about the old country and his hometown. He wondered what it looked like right now, under the rain, maybe some snow, and Christmas lights everywhere. In his mind, it looked like a postcard from a time that didn’t exist anymore.

 

  1. 2010 – Houston, TX



She left with Carlos. On Christmas Eve. Not that Jesse was planning anything fancy, like a dinner or presents. But… maybe he would have liked to be made aware of her plans – was it a heist? Wouldn’t they need backup? The candle had finished melting on the table, and the pasta was now cold and unappetizing. At least he had wine, he thought, raising his glass to the empty seat in front of him.

He tried, but most of the time he didn’t understand what made Tulip tick. She could be violent and relentless, yet sensitive and good with kids. She was perfect by his side during a job, when they needed to be attuned and react quickly. But he was starting to doubt that she could be anything more than a partner in crime.

For the first time in years, he thought about his father and Annville. What it would be like to have a normal life and a normal family. He shook off the thought, because his phone rang and Tulip was shouting in his ear, something about dead bodies in the bayou. He grabbed his keys and his jacket and left without looking back.

 

  1. 2012 – London, England



Those buggers were relentless, Cassidy thought, navigating through a very crowded Regent Street, trying not to bump into anyone. The snow melted before it even reached the ground, where it would have been trampled by excited Christmas shoppers. Another blood drop hit the floor, fat and shiny, unnoticed. He pressed a hand into his side and hurried up. The church was straight ahead, St James something. The hunters’ nest.

The idea from his friends in Ireland had been to strike the hunters directly where they operated. It was a bunch of evangelical nutjobs who believed that God had asked them to get rid of supernatural creatures, and frankly, it was becoming a bit annoying. You couldn’t step out in a big city without being chased, shot at and doused in holy water.

The flesh in his side was slowly knitting itself back together, like you would patch a hole in an old sock, only bloodier and messier. Something to drink would help, right now – hemoglobin or alcohol, he wasn’t picky. But there was no time, he needed to strike now, or they’d lose them once again.

The church was closed and dark, a strange sight on such a merry night. They probably spun a tale about renovation or gas leak, they were resourceful buggers. Cassidy ruffled through his backpack, taking out a homemade Molotov cocktail. He crashed through the side door and threw his lit bottle in the middle of a group of very confused priests. It exploded in a fiery ball of flames and shards of glass, and Cassidy reached into his bag to get his hands on another one.

He was beginning to enjoy the night when he got a shotgun blast between the shoulder blades.

   

            +1. 2016 – Annville, TX

He had flipped Jesse’s truck. He was going to kill him, if the blood loss didn’t do that first. Dying of exsanguination was a pretty stupid death for a vampire, he thought. He tried not to giggle because it moved the piece of a wooden fence that was currently sticking out of his chest. And no, stakes couldn’t kill a vampire, but getting skewered by anything pointy and sharp hurt a lot.

The sirens of the ambulance he rammed into were still on, but there was no one around to hear them. He was going to die in a frigging field in the middle of nowhere, with fresh bodies lying not twenty meters away, so close, yet so out of reach when you couldn’t move.

He wished he had a phone. He wished he had a hacksaw. And blood. But not his, and not spurting out of his body at an alarming rate. He hoped anyone would find him and try and rescue him before the sun rose, or he was toast. Literally.

He woke up to a hand slapping his face a bit too forcefully, and Jesse shouting something. Probably telling him not to die, or some other nonsense, because he couldn’t die, remember? He tried to say something, but it came out garbled. Blood trickled out of his mouth, not words.

“… do you need?” Jesse was saying. “Tell me!”

“Blood?” Cassidy tried to say, because it seemed obvious at this point.

He was covered in it, and Jesse too. His hands when he tried to take the fence out of his vampire friend, his collar when he looped a finger in it to loosen it. His face…

Another slap and he was awake again, still stuck, still pissed. Then Jesse was gone. The siren has gone quiet while he was unconscious. He tried to hum, but ended up coughing wetly.

“Stop that. Here,” Jesse said, as he crawled into the overturned truck once more. He was holding a blue and white cooler, like the ones you used for a picnic, or for… Cassidy’s eyes grew wider when he realized what was inside – a human organ, full of blood, still fresh as it lay on a bed of ice.

Jesse opened the box – it was a pair of kidneys – then looked unsure about what to do, until Cassidy made grabbing gestures, slightly uncoordinated, but very clear about his intentions.

“Presents are a bit early this year,” Jesse said with a strained laugh that sounded fake.

“Bought you a bottle of Ratwater whiskey, but I drank it,” Cassidy said, between two bites. “Are the medics…?”

“You are not eating the paramedics,” Jesse said, and it was final.

When Cassidy didn’t look half dead anymore, Jesse helped him get the wooden stake out of his chest. They watched as the wound closed sluggishly, soon leaving a holey and bloody shirt over unbroken skin.

“Okay, quick question,” Jesse asked on the way back to the church.

“Shoot.”

“Were you planning on robbing that ambulance?”

After an awkward silence, Cassidy said with the flash of a smile, “Maybe?”

“You’re a terrible human being…” Jesse said between his teeth.

“No longer human, remember.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Preacher Santa Exchange Fic on tumblr.  
> The prompt was: Cassidy, Jesse, Christmas present opening.


End file.
